The U.S. emerges as 1-0 victors after Gyasi Zardes unleashes a scorcher. -The U.S. dominated possession and Ecuador was pretty toothless, but the U.S. didn't create a ton of chances. -McKennie hobbles off with an ankle injury which occurred right after Bradley entered the match. -The novelty of the Adams at right back experiment sort of petered out as the match went on, IMO, because the match descended into drudgery.
It was a good test against a bunkering team. And as always, the player unafraid to try a long range shot somehow gets the winner.
Berhalter at least has a plan. Thats the good news. The bad news is that it seems to me we are playing the entire higher end core of our team in the wrong position. Everyone wanted to see Pulisic, McKennie and Adams finally on the field together. We did. But I wouldnt have any of them in the role/position that they were in. And that will be a problem going forward. Ream is not for this level. Yedlin will never be an attacking wing. This is going to be a long, interesting ride. And I am not certain that is a good thing.
hmm....what do i say Ream - Thanks, and good bye. Too slow and mistake prone. Give other young defender some chances. GGG - Put Adams back in CM, Put Yedlin back in RB. Stop ********ing around and putting players out of position. Go back to the basics, and perfect your executions. You're not a master tactician, every body knows it. Trapp - Like it. He works hard. A good team player. Good to have on the roster. Bradley - Good bye. We have way too many options in the midfield. At this point, I much prefer Trapp over Bradley. Zardes, Morris, and Ariola - Back up options at best. Give the young forwards and wingers some good runs. At least they have more potentials.
My hot take: Ream isn't the right baby sitter for Brooks. Ok, with that out of the way..... The missing ingredient tonight was interplay between the 10's and their respective wingers, i.e. Weston and Morris on the right and, to a lesser extent, Arriola and Pulisic on the left. Those partnerships are the key in this set up. We will see Roldan with, hopefully, Morris on the right vs. Chile. Having Adams to move up into a press there will help, or Trapp with Adams staying back.
True, but that was primarily because Adams only had a positional place-holder in front of him. IMHO, Jordan Morris was the only player who looked out of place and not up to the task of international competition. Too slow; too slow to react; touch inadequate; completely failed to take players on. Place holder player.
I genuinely believe Zardes, Arriola and Morris bring the rest of the team down Just happy to be winning games again. Defense was structured and killer
Who would you play on the wings? We don’t have any high performing wingers in general besides Pulisic but we can use more of him playing in the middle. We also don’t have a high performing ACM even though Pulisic could go there. His skill set for this role isn’t going to get any better though playing on the wing. Until Pomykal, Carleton, and Busio become more seasoned we’re stuck with someone like Lletget as a starting or backup ACM.
I thought Pulisic's outing was disappointing, I'd expect more initiative and aggression from him. He didn't look at his best. Lost the ball multiple times on passes and especially on moves that didn't fool solitary Ecuador defenders. McKennie - lots of errant passes, and a really foolish challenge that caused his injury. I thought Brooks, Long, Lletget and Arriola were our best players today.
DY---MM---JB---Long---some marauding left back WT TA---CP---McK Some forward that can hold up the ball and score occasionally What is so hard about that? I thought Long looked real good. Given the circumstances, TA looked real good. We won!!??
Biggest disappointment: Pulisic. The poor guy looks as if he's been stripped of all his dribbling skill. I hope he gets it back, for his own sake and for the USA and Chelsea.
I thought so, too, but the slow play against a static defense may be the reason. He had no chance to play in transition, really.
I don’t mind playing with possession, but when in the attack try to do so with speed of thought and speed of play. When your opponent is just sitting back (like what we will see often in CONCACAF), attacking with pace is important.
It's been known from the beginning that Berhalter likes to create easy chances for his strikers, in the box. Against a bunkering team, as Ecuador played, he needs to make adjustments to allow for longer range shots.
Drab, slow, possession football, with a Zardes classic accidental goal, but I think most analysis of the team and players should be saved for games where the opponent doesn't treat us like we're Brasil. Ecuador wasted ours and the fans' time by and large.
Long was a beast. Trapp played well. While I still have doubts about the Adams role, I thought it worked well tonight. I thought he was optimized.
1. Why does the obvious always seem to allude our national team coach? We have 2 young but world class dcm's and we play MB? We have a premier league rt back and we play him at rt forward? How is lewis on the roster but Sargent and Weah aren't? I just don't get the obvious misses. 2. Trapp is good to have on the roster for when we are the better team. His play-making was good tonight. He will struggle when the role is more defensive. He is worth a spot imho. 3. Where are the adjustments? Ecuador was clearly trying to close the space with 2 deep sitting dcms. The wide spaces early were the answer. And we played Jordan Morris and Arriola out there to create our chances? 4. Playing a 433 when wide backs don't overlap is always going to create that kind of match. At home, was that our plan? We won't have the ball long enough against top teams for his rt back tuck central plan to play out. The overall performance wasn't awful, but there are a LOT of warning signs that this isn't going to go well!
1-0 feels about like the right result, though I'd have thought the goal would have come during the first 15/20min when the team was connecting well, rather than in that abysmal-dismal second half where it looked like the second coming of Elvis was more likely than a goal. The purported holy trinity did not play with the instantaneous brilliance many of us hoped they would, which may well be due to their each being at least a little out of position. It could also well be due to the fact that this combination of players is relatively new and needs time to gel into their respective roles. The McKinnie injury looked rough on the replay. I hope it's a simple sprain and that his 20 year old ankle will heal with alacrity. That said, this Ecuador team did not exactly look on fire with competitive spirit, and a better team would have punished some of the mistakes we got away with. The Ream boner [sic] late in the game was something a reasonably decent forward would have buried. (Btw if the number 9 who seemed to be mentally reciting the complete score from the HMS Pinafore prior to actually taking a rip on goal is the future of the Ecuador program that program's future is ... far in the future.) And it was nice to see Zardes get on the score sheet, since he is a hardworking player and seems like a decent dude. But the longer term effect of that truly freak-of-the-week goal may not be so hot since however likable, GZ is at best a journeyman and I'd like to see other plausible center-forwards (whoever they may be) get a run-out. Zardes always seems to do just enough to remain in the mix for that spot, but never enough to actually inspire. This was a nice win. We played pretty well for a half against an uninspired but basically competent opponent. There's lots of work to do. I don't look at this team and think "wow the potential, it's only a matter of time before they're brilliant," but I've never thought that about a US team. Mostly it's a bunch of solid players, and a couple very good ones, who play their roles well and raise their game when needed (e.g., WC02). And I can see this group doing something like that. So there's hope. And ya gotta have hope.
Yedlin is wasted on the bench and Adams is wasted at the False 6. I am happy to see Lleget get a chance though and though he looked bad tonight I like Morris on the wing.